Brownies
by The Kubrickian
Summary: Harry loves Ginny's brownies. And it seems Hermione does too, after she tastes one. Featuring Harry's withdrawal problems, nightmare sequences, and a sexually-confused Hermione! What could possibly go wrong?


**A/N: ***peeks out* Hello? Anybody out there? I'm still here!

…..oh? _The Vigilant_? Yeah…. I've written about seven drafts of the next chapter, nothing good came out. Forgive me… but it WILL be updated soon! Enjoy this hopefully not-too-distasteful-towards Weasleys oneshot! Takes place during 7th year in the tent, right after Ron's left.

Anyway, ONWARD!

**Brownies**

_Dear Harry – _

_I miss you! Please tell me that your 'search' is going well! I hope these brownies cheer you up? Love you and miss you! XOXOXO_

_Your true love, _

_Ginny_

"You do realize she's being a bit stupid?" Hermione said as Harry skimmed the letter.

Harry turned to her, aghast. "How is she being stupid?"

"Well, she's sending letters to you when she knows that everyone on Earth is looking for you."

"Looking for us."

"Oh, right."

Harry went to the other side of the tent. Some of Ron's stuff was still there, so he cleared it out of the way, but the case of brownies from Ginny on the floor and began to open them. Hermione was still a bit skeptical, and she walked over to Harry and his treasure of sorts.

"How many of those has she sent you now?" she asked.

"Well, she's been sending them to me via Mrs. Weasley, sending them to her, with the brownies, then having Mrs. Weasley send them to me, since it's too dangerous to send them straight from Hogwarts now."

"Okay, so they don't inspect mail very clearly then?"

"Apparently," he said, and he began to wolf down the first brownie. Hermione began to tear up slightly. He noticed.

"What?" he asked.

"You look like Ron when you eat those."

"So? I thought you were over him."

"I try to be, but… it's difficult. He left most of his stuff here, you know?"

"Yeah. You look through it?"

"Yes, he had some of his cooking stuff and food left over."

"Really? You eat any of it?"

"Enough to stay healthy, but"-

He gobbled down another brownie. She eyed them eagerly.

"I know this'll sound weird, but can I have one of those?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh, sure." He handed her a brownie. She took a nibble, then she stopped in awe –

"Wow."

"What?" asked Harry.

"These are good… _really _good! Ginny's a great cook!" Hermione replied. She reached for another brownie, the first one already gone. Harry grabbed her hand.

"Whoa, Hermione. Restrain yourself, they're my brownies"-

"But they're _really good_"-

"Hermione, not now! They're MY brownies!"

~0~

"Have you ever realized how beautiful Ginny's hair is?" asked Hermione.

Harry choked on his brownie. "What?" he asked in bewilderment. "I beg your pardon?"

"Her hair…" replied Hermione. "It's so silky, smooth, straight… it's the color of a bright rose glistening in a sweet summer breeze…"

"Er….okay?"

"Can I have another brownie?"

"What?!"

"Are you deaf, Harry? I'd like another brownie!"

"Well… they're MY brownies…"

"But they're amazing! I really like them! Please Harry?"

"….fine." Harry sighed as he held a brownie out to Hermione, and she gobbled it up.

"Why are these so good?" she asked.

"Well…" thought Harry. "She told me once she made them with love."

~0~

Harry needed some alone time to go out and walk, and he did so at sunset, taking a breath of fresh air outside the tent. He went down by the river, relaxed, and breathed slowly.

"Everything is going to be all right," he said to himself. "Everything is going to be ok."

He went back to the tent to get a brownie, and opened Ginny's box. There were considerably fewer brownies than there were when he left.

"Hermione!" he yelled out, looking for her. She was in her bed, sitting beneath her covers when he stormed in. Hermione yelped out in surprise, and took off the cover; she was perfectly normal, except for a curmudgeon of chocolate staining her upper lip. She realized this and whipped this away but it was too late – Harry had seen it.

"You've been in my brownies again!"

"I'm sorry!" she said, blushing. "I couldn't help myself! We haven't had any real sweets in a while now!"

She started crying a bit again. "Ron made good food…"

"He did?"

"Yeah…he always did tell me he made it with love"-

"Well… don't touch my brownies."

"Can we share?!"

"N…well…. Fine. You can have _some_. But they are _my_ brownies."

"Thank you! You're a great friend, Harry!" She ran up and engulfed Harry in a massive bear hug, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Later, they finished the rest of the brownies together in earnest.

~0~

When the brownies came again the next week, it had a similar note from Ginny:

_I love you with all my heart! My love for you is like a persistent memory I want to relive every moment of the day! Your thought makes my heart warm!_

_Your true love, _

_Ginny_

"You left out the 'Dear Harry' bit," said Harry.

"Really?" said Hermione, who was reading the letter out loud. She blushed. "I'm sorry… I must have forgotten…"

"It's fine – let's dig in then!"

And they feasted upon the chocolate bits of love from Ginny.

~0~

Five days later, Harry had a dream. He'd been dreaming about Ginny a lot since sixth year, but he didn't know that tonight would be an exception – that it would not only be about Ginny.

When his dream began, he was standing in the middle of the empty Great Hall in Hogwarts, all alone. He heard a voice in his ear, although he knew there was no one there; it said "_Come find me_."

It was Hermione's voice, without doubt. He turned to see where the voice came from, but there was no one there. He turned back around and saw a glimpse of a shadow escape the door of the Great Hall. Hurriedly, he ran after it.

"_Come find me_."

Hogwarts was empty, and Harry kept seeing the glimpse of the shadow just escaping his vision. He began sprinting.

"_Come find me_."

Harry had run outside and saw Hermione run into Hagrid's cabin far below him. He ran after her, and almost broke in the door to the cabin. Inside, however, was not Hermione. It wasn't Hagrid either.

It was Ginny.

"Hi."

Harry was perplexed. "Do you know where Hermione is?"

"_Come find me."_

"I thought you were looking for me."

"But….I saw her run in here!"

He started hearing the sound of a loud wind behind him – but he couldn't feel the wind. The sound was steadily increasing, like someone was turning up the volume on a speaker.

"_Come find me_."

"You're looking for ME, Harry."

Harry looked up, and Ginny wasn't Ginny anymore. She looked the same, but her skin was pale white and her clothes were darker than black. "Kiss me, Harry," she said in barely more than a sensual whisper.

The wind was still howling behind him, almost growling – when he started hearing mad laughter, like a loon, behind him too. But he couldn't turn around. He was petrified, staring at Not-Ginny.

"Kiss me Harry," it said again.

Then he heard Hermione again. "_Come fi-Harry! Help_!"

A screaming choir joined the wind and mad laughter. Hermione's voice began pleading for help. Not-Ginny smiled.

"Where's Hermione?!" yelled Harry.

"_BUT DON'T YOU WANT ME INSTEAD?" _whispered Not-Ginny. She floated forward, pushing a still Harry backwards into a black void where Hagrid's cabin used to me. Suddenly, Harry felt himself convulse and a large green monster burst out of his chest and looked him straight in the eye, teeth gleaming. All the sounds reached a climax, getting louder and louder and louder until-

Silence. Darkness.

"Want a brownie, Harry?" asked Not-Ginny.

And then Harry woke up. He could barely see due to the clouds covering the moon, but a small lamp coming from underneath Hermione's covers lit up the place.

"Hermione!" he whispered loudly, and she squeaked, fumbling out of her covers, and almost fell out of her bed. She poked her head out from beneath the sheets.

"What, Harry?" she asked.

"Can I come over there with you?" he asked childishly.

"Sure! Come on over!" she said, not giving the suggestion a second thought. Harry got up and out of bed, put on pajamas, and walked over to where Hermione was situated. He sat up with her underneath her covers, the blanket around them glowing orange from the lamplight. They seemed like schoolchildren reading books after their bedtime.

Hermione looked…. Harry looked at her. She was wearing the cutest pajamas – lavender with maroon stripes? Interesting. Her hair was cascading down over the rest of her body, and she was sitting with her knees up to her chin.

Harry was confused. He'd never thought about her like this before – not consciously, anyway. Subconsciously, maybe, but not while she was present. She looked up at him as if on cue, and smiled. He smiled back.

How had he not seen this before?

It was then that he noticed what she was reading. It was the Marauder's Map. And she had her eyes on Gryffindor Tower.

"Who are you watching in Gryffindor Tower?" he asked, heart hurting for some reason.

"No reason," she said, hastily giving it back to him. Mischief managed.

~0~

Two days later, it appeared that the brownies did not come at all. Not that Harry specifically minded – he'd been wanting to take his mind off of Ginny for a while now, and it seemed that not eating those brownies did the trick.

There was a bright side though – at dinner that night, Hermione told Harry that all the feelings she hypothetically once may have possibly had for Ron Weasley had disappeared. "I no longer have some sort of romantic attachment to a fool who ditches his friends at the first sight of trouble!" she had proclaimed. Harry had a good chuckle – this was the Hermione he knew and loved.

But when he literally thought that he stopped himself for some reason. …huh?

That night, he heard Hermione snatch the Marauder's Map again. He couldn't really blame her – he figured that she had a crush on some boy back at Hogwarts and wanted to stalk his movements creepily like a stalker (like he used to do). And for some reason, he despised the fact that she may be looking at someone… which brought his mind back to Ginny. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Ginny wasn't… well, how does one put it?

It's the feeling of falling out of love.

~0~

Three days later.

Hermione and Harry were outside walking, possibly discussing life, possibly discussing Horcruxes, possibly discussing what they'll do after all this war stuff is over. They were walking together underneath the cloudy sky, the leaves blowing around in the wind, the air a moderate temperature – not too hot, not too cold.

They were walking through the forest, alone together, both laughing. And then they looked into each other's eyes. Hermione of course just smiled and made nothing of it, but on the other hand – something hit Harry hard.

It hit him like an arrow, no – it hit him like a key, one that unlocked something in his heart. Had he felt something like this his whole life? Did he always feel like this, but never acted on it? He felt like this had been there a while, it's just he was either too dense or too stupid to realize it.

He felt something more than deep friendship for Hermione Granger.

That night, he had a dream.

Nothing too complicated, it was just he was old. An old man with graying hair, wrinkled skin, and a bigger understanding of the world. He was sitting on his front porch, smiling, content with his life, watching a car drive up to his house on a dirt road.

He became aware that there was another presence beside him – an old woman, his wife, just as beautiful then as she was when she was young, smiling just the same as he was.

Then he woke up again.

~0~

It was the second week in a row where the brownies didn't make it to the tent. And now, as he came to realize it, Hermione was gone too.

"Hermione?" he yelled out. Slight confusion nicked him as he wandered around the tent. "Hermione!"

He opened the curtain to her room, and found her on the ground, engulfing her mouth with mountains of brownies. She was looking up at Harry with her face a mixture of shock, apology, and slight anger. The note to Harry lay discarded on the floor beside her.

"Harry…" she quivered.

"Hermione…why?" he asked.

"Harry…I've been meaning to tell you for a while now…" Tears were coming to her eyes now, and there was a pang in Harry's chest. "I think… I think I'm in love with Ginny Weasley…"

"…WHAT?!" Of all the things in the world that Harry was expecting, it was NOT this.

"Ever since I'd learned what a great cook she was, I started thinking more and more about her and I realized… she's a wonderful person. And she's so beautiful… her hair, red like the last whispers of a sunset, her eyes, as…"

She began to ramble on about Ginny in a raspy, lustful voice that Harry found both arousing and infuriating, which really isn't a very good combination for Harry on the best of days; but suddenly, he got an idea.

"Hermione?" he asked.

"-and her body, such a ravishing form, I just"-

"Hermione!"

"What?!"

"Are you bisexual or something?"

"I didn't think so but Ginny made me re"-

"Hermione!"

"WHAT?!"

"I need you to stop eating the brownies. I have an idea."

"But Harry, I love the brownies…" She sounded like a small child begging for its candy.

"I have a theory. I need you to stop eating the brownies and to do an ingredients check on them."

"An… ingredients check?"

"Yes! There might be something in the brownies."

~0~

Harry was waiting outside the tent for Hermione to complete the check. He thought about Ginny, and the 'love' he had in his chest last year.

_Was none of it real? Was it all just an illusion fabricated by the meddling of a discreetly hidden potion?_

"Harry!" cried Hermione from the tent. He got up, and went back in the tent; looking around, he glared at Hermione.

"Nothing's changed, Hermione."

"That's because I didn't find anything."

"The brownie's missing."

"There was nothing left after the experiments."

"…I can literally see the chocolate on your lip, Hermione."

Hermione pouted at him and threw her arms down in a rage, then went into her bed. Harry went over to her and found she was crying in the sheets.

"The brownies… I don't _want_ to find anything in there… I'm scared…"

"Hermione…it's okay…I'm not sure why you're obsessing over this, but I'm sure if we find what I think we'll find, you won't like her much anymore."

"What _exactly_ do you think we'll find?!" she yelled at him.

"…some sort of potion."

Hermione was silent. "You… you're serious?"

"Yes, think about it – all last year, she was always sitting next to us, watching us eat, and I fell for her. Now, when I'm gone, to keep the illusion up, she had Ron give some to my food. When he left, she had Mrs. Weasley send some brownies with the potion inside to keep fooling me. Only bad thing, you had some, got addicted, and I stopped getting them because of you. I fell out of love for her, and you fell in love with her, all because we switched who ate the brownies! It all makes sense!"

Hermione was on the verge of tears.

"All right, Harry… you win… I'll do a real check this time…"

Slowly, she got up, and got another brownie from her hidden stash of them. She looked up at Harry.

"Er… you can watch if you find it necessary…"

Harry nodded, and sat down to watch Hermione do her stuff. After about 30 minutes of meticulous spell-casting and potion making, suddenly a large magenta cloud of puffy smoke emitted from the brownie. Hermione cleared her throat with a sniffle.

"That's…. that's Amormentia…" she said, and a tear fell.

~0~

They threw the brownies off the cliff.

Hermione mourned the loss of a great piece of desert, while Harry simply looked out a lost memory falling away from his life. They walked back to the camp in silence.

Nothing else really happened that day. Hermione avoided him for the most part, ashamed that she'd hurt/betrayed/done whatever to him.

He didn't mind. He knew the potion would fade out in a couple of days, and he'd have his friend back.

As Harry was falling asleep, he heard a not-so-discreet pair of hands snatch his Marauder's Map from his bedside table. Smiling to himself, he got out of bed to see a now familiar sight – Hermione underneath her covers with her wand lit watching the Marauder's Map. He walked over to her, and pulled up her sheets.

She wasn't scared. She'd heard him coming.

"Go ahead and sit down, Harry." She gestured to the spot beside her on her bed, and he sat down as she said.

"You're still waiting for the potion to wear off?" he asked.

"Yeah. How long did it take to wear off on you?" she asked.

"About a couple of days."

"Okay, good."

He noticed Hermione's eyes trailing the dot signifying Ginny on the map, and it occurred to him that everyone else in the world was oblivious to everything that had occurred in the tent over the course of the last several weeks.

Hermione looked up at him, and blushed a bit.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

"Hey, it's fine. Don't worry about it."

Silence again. Then, instinctively, Harry put his arm around her.

She looked at him again, then smiled a small, secret smile to herself.

It felt nice.

~0~

A/N: Anti-climax much? Like? Favorite? Review? Do what you want. Kudos!


End file.
